The new investors in the venture include Subrata Mitra & Shekhar Kirani of Accel Partners (they have invested in their individual capacities), Sharad Sharma, former Yahoo India R&D head, Vivek Raghavan, chief product manager of UIDAI (the Aadhaar project), Pallaw Sharma, director of analytics at Microsoft based in Redmond, Bala Parthasarthy, serial entrepreneur and part of the AngelPrime angel investor group, Sunil Kalra, entrepreneur & investor, Paras Chopra and Pallav Nadhani, both founders of successful startups.

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The Google Lunar XPrize, which carries $40 million in prize money, also requires that a rover will dismount from the landing craft and travel 500 metres on the lunar surface, and take high quality images.

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Going by the latest reviews of the project by top space scientists, Team Indus could well achieve its mission. V Adimurthy, a senior ISRO advisor and designer of the Mars orbiter mission, said about two years ago, when he first met Team Indus, there were many loose ends. "Three months ago there was another review, and what I saw made very good sense. It has become a very feasible project, and I think they can do it," he said.

For Team Indus, a huge boost came in February, when Google Lunar XPrize named the team among the five finalists for what it called milestone prizes -teams that had achieved certain technological landmarks and appeared closest to reaching the final objective. Team Indus was among three named for the landing system and among four named for the imaging system. Only two US teams -Astrobotic and Moon Express -were named in all three categories, including the rover.

Since the landing system is regarded the most complicated and carried the highest prize money (of $1 million), Team Indus was seen as No. 3 in the race.

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Another big boost came three months ago when senior Indian space scientists did a design review and showered the team with praises. "We had tears in our eyes when we heard the fantastic evaluation," says Narayan.

V Adimurthy, the Mars orbiter mission designer for ISRO, has recommended to ISRO that Team Indus be provided launch network and ground services. Team Indus will also need ISRO's launch vehicle when the project is ready, and lots more funding in the months to come.

(The team needs about $35 million.) It will still be a challenge. But the good news is, some of our ideas and theories stand validated. We hope to get one large global consumer brand to sponsor half of our requirements. The other half we will raise through equity . For that, the support I have seen among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs gives hope.

"Team Indus requires $35 million to build the final pieces and launch the craft."

With $25M left in the prize pot, that means that Team Indus will be $10M in the red, even if they win!

I am guessing that none of the teams can hope to get out of the red, hope Google will increase the prize money.

Yeah, the fatal flaw in the GLXP is that the prize amounts are just too low to justify the cost.

If SpaceX can manage to greatly lower launch costs, maybe the current prize amounts would make sense in 5 or 10 years, but not today.

Listen to latest TMRO (spacevidcast) show in regards to the prize amount. It was never designed for winning team to get rich.

Sure, but it seems clear that it has not been a success so far. Some people may look at it and say, "Look, this shows prizes don't really work". I think it's worth considering whether making sure prizes at least cover the costs of the winner get more bang for the buck. It still leverages more investment than the prize money because all the losers also invest, and it has the advantage of using competition to make the best use of resources. Compared with just selecting among proposals and giving the money ahead of time as a grant, I think that kind of prize is much more effective. And it may be more effective than a GLXP-style prize where even the winner ends up deep in the red.

A name with less than 24 characters will be micro-etched on a 2 inch by 2 inch black cube, which, along with a rover ( a small tank-like robot) will be dropped on the moon by a capsule (spacecraft)

Team Indus is looking to micro-etch 1.4 million names on the tiny cube. At Rs 500 collected for every name, it would earn the company Rs 70 crore , a sort of crowdfunding initiative...But Rs 70 crore is still less than the total estimated project cost of $70-80 million (over Rs 400 crore).

Team Indus is in talks with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to carry the rover on a PSLV ( Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) sometime around September 2017. The deal is likely to be signed within two months....Former Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal and automobile designer Dilip Chabria have reportedly started funding the project.

Team Indus and the Lunar X PrizeTeam Indus has made reasonable progress so far. The mission concept was formulated in 2012 and systems design started a year later. A major motivational boost came from winning one of the milestone prizes worth $1 million for landing technology in January 2015. All going well, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will launch Team Indus into space through a dedicated polar satellite launch vehicle in September 2017. Team Indus has serious global competition of course, but is currently rated among the top three firms in the race for the prize.

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As Rahul Narayan, chief executive, and Vivek Raghavan, adviser, explained it to me, the Team Indus spacecraft’s lunar descent will start at 12.6km above the surface of the moon, with the spacecraft travelling at 1.69km/s (Mach 5+). The landing zone is selected 700km downstream from the descent point and the entire descent will take about 900 seconds. The descent needs to be completely autonomous, since the time needed to tele-command the spacecraft from earth is too long.

Since the moon has no atmosphere, the engines need to be fired to reduce the velocity to land on the moon. The spacecraft has one main engine delivering 460 newton (N) of thrust and 16 thrusters of 22N that are used to kill the velocity and control the spacecraft. The descent is guided by a number of sensors including a laser altimeter, two lunar descent cameras and four laser range finders. The firing of the engines is computed using the inputs from sensors to follow a fuel optimal trajectory to achieve touchdown.

There are five phases during descent. The navigation and guidance strategies are different for each phase of descent. The spacecraft mass at the beginning of descent is 400kg and it burns 200kg of fuel during descent. The spacecraft speeds need to be less than 1m/s in both the vertical and lateral direction at touchdown.

When SpaceIL and Moon Express had launch contracts that were verified by the GLXP, in each case the GLXP people issued a press release about it. So far, there's been no similar word from GLXP about Team Indus.

I believe that ISRO can't provide a free or reduced-cost launch for Team Indus or they'd be ineligible for the GLXP. So the question is where Team Indus found the funds to pay for a dedicated launch. There's also the question of whether ISRO can provide accounting information to satisfy GLXP that Team Indus really is paying the full cost of the flight. There's been controversy in the past about whether costs quoted by India for their launchers really include all costs.

There's also the question of whether ISRO can provide accounting information to satisfy GLXP that Team Indus really is paying the full cost of the flight. There's been controversy in the past about whether costs quoted by India for their launchers really include all costs.

To be fair, no launch provider in the world can actually provide that. Also there are various creative ways of hiding subsidies if one really wants to

There's also the question of whether ISRO can provide accounting information to satisfy GLXP that Team Indus really is paying the full cost of the flight. There's been controversy in the past about whether costs quoted by India for their launchers really include all costs.

IMO, that's a rather different situation. The question around the quoted cost of MOM was about whether the accounting was comparable to government missions by other agencies, and centers around development and operations more than launch cost.

As far I understand the GLXP restriction, the key question is not whether the launcher is subsidized (which as savuporo says, is a very tricky question), it's whether the same launch would be available to other teams at the same cost. What ISRO/Antrix charge foreign customers for launch was recently disclosed in the Indian parliament, so determining that should be pretty straightforward.

Imagine, design and build a project that would catalyse the evolution of mankind as a sustainable multi-planetary species. We believe that for mankind to evolve into a multi-planetary species, sustainable living is key.

That means your team of upto three people have to conceive your project from the point of view of sustainability. It could range from investigating how seeds grow in space through to examining new possibilities in renewable energy. The project should fit the dimensions of a soda can, and weigh under 250 grams. It should also be able to connect with the on-board computer.

Register before the 20th of August, 2016, write a short concept note, upload project drawings and share a video on why your project should fly to the moon. Shortlisted entries will be asked to build a prototype and invited to showcase it to an international jury at the TeamIndus HQ in Bangalore, India, early next year. The winning project will get to ride to the moon!

France-India space cooperation CNES joins Indian Team Indus mission French technology to fly to the Moon in 2017

At the Toulouse Space Show, where India is guest of honour, CNES signed an agreement with Indian firm Axiom Research Labs to contribute to the Team Indus mission that is set to land a module and rover on the Moon in 2017. France will supply latest-generation CMOS micro-cameras developed in partnership with French firm 3DPlus.

Tuesday 28 June at the Toulouse Space Show, where India is guest of honour, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall and Rahul Narayan, Director of Axiom Research Labs, signed a letter of intent to fly leading-edge French technology on an Indian lunar rover for the first private mission to the Moon. CNES is thus teaming up with Axiom Research Labs to conduct a lunar landing in 2017 and CASPEX (Colour cmos cAmera for SPace EXploration) micro-cameras will equip sensors designed to aid the rover’s progress by detecting ground obstacles in the path of its wheels.

This partnership plays into CNES’s strategy of developing closer ties with the new generation of players from the NewSpace sphere, in which India is a prime mover. In so doing, CNES is demonstrating its ability to innovate and adapt. India’s historic partnership with CNES dates back to 1964, when it signed its first space cooperation agreement with France.

The CASPEX micro-camera is built around complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology using integration methods patented by 3DPlus that reduce the size of an optical imaging instrument by a factor of ten. CASPEX is reprogrammable and radiation-tolerant, making it suited to a range of space missions. Produced by 3DPlus, a firm located in Buc, France, it will be making its first flight for this mission. Team Indus is led by Bangalore-based start-up Axiom Research Labs, the figurehead of the NewSpace movement in India. Team Indus is competing in the Google Lunar X Prize.

On the occasion of this signature, Jean-Yves Le Gall commented: “CNES must look for excellence where it is to be found, for today’s space technology will drive tomorrow’s technology revolutions and growth. In joining forces with Team Indus on this mission to land a rover on the Moon in 18 months’ time, CNES is showing that innovation in France has a key role to play in NewSpace. These new players are doing things differently and working to short schedules by deploying innovative methods. The average age of our new partners is 30, so we will learn as much from them as they will from us.”

BENGALURU: For the first time ever, a private space venture in India has been contracted to carry a payload to the moon for a global space agency. The venture, Bengaluru-based Team Indus, among the frontrunners in the Google XPrize competition to put a privately funded craft on the moon by December 2017, will carry a new line of state-of-the-art cameras for France's national space agency CNES.

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There will be no exchange of money in this contract. CNES, which has for long worked with ISRO, gets to test its new cameras and partner with a venture that's developing innovative technologies expected to bring down space mission costs and reduce launch timelines. Team Indus gets cameras that it needs for the mission - they will aid the rover's progress on the moon by detecting ground obstacles in the path of its wheels - and for which it would otherwise have had to pay over $500,000.

BENGALURU: For the first time ever, a private space venture in India has been contracted to carry a payload to the moon for a global space agency. The venture, Bengaluru-based Team Indus, among the frontrunners in the Google XPrize competition to put a privately funded craft on the moon by December 2017, will carry a new line of state-of-the-art cameras for France's national space agency CNES.

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There will be no exchange of money in this contract. CNES, which has for long worked with ISRO, gets to test its new cameras and partner with a venture that's developing innovative technologies expected to bring down space mission costs and reduce launch timelines. Team Indus gets cameras that it needs for the mission - they will aid the rover's progress on the moon by detecting ground obstacles in the path of its wheels - and for which it would otherwise have had to pay over $500,000.

This trade isn't for the launch services themselves so presumably is well within the rules... Can anyone deny/confirm?

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"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

The propulsion systems that will be used on their spacecraft next year is of a kind that has never been used before for a mission of this sort. Team Indus engineers realised that the usual route to landing a spacecraft on the moon, using engines of variable thrust, was closed to them as countries closely guard their propulsion technology.

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No off-the-shelf variable-thrust satellite engines were available to them. There was no time to develop new engines anyway, even if the company managed to put together the expertise to develop them. So the Indian team took a decision: use a combination of small fixed thrust engines and produce the same effect using control algorithms. "We are trying to accomplish in software what we cannot do in hardware," says M Jayaraman, a former ISRO propulsion expect who is now advising Team Indus.

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By being in Bengaluru, Team Indus hopes to launch with ISRO, but no contract has been signed yet.

In any case, the Team Indus satellite has been designed keeping in mind the capabilities of ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). At a launch weight of 600 kilograms, it is well within the weight restrictions of this versatile rocket.

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The algorithms are critical as they are used for controlling the main engine and the 16 engines that are used for maneuvering by the satellite. Team Indus will use 16 fixed thrust engines in various combinations to achieve variable thrust during descent to the moon. "It is one step beyond Chandrayan-1," says Srinivas Hegde, who is heading the mission control for Team Indus.

Team Independence-X from Malaysia intends to launch their rover aboard PSLV in August 2017.

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He adds that IDXA is in the midst of getting funding for the launch of the Independence X rover – a lunar drone spacecraft running on the team’s own Independence-4 engine – in August 2017 by the ­Indian Space Research ­Organisation (ISRO)’s Polar ­Satellite Launch Vehicle.

If all goes well, it will be the first Malaysian spacecraft to be launched through ISRO. As Izmir explains, “[we] developed the technology here [in Malaysia]”.

Almost every component of the craft is built by the team, except for the communication systems. Even the test chambers are built by IDXA.

“We need €23 million (RM106.6 million) for the project,” says Izmir, “€20 million (RM92.7 ­million) for the launch, and €3 million (RM13.9 million) for ­logistics and cost of the spacecraft.”

He adds if ­successful, it will be the cheapest launch programme to the Moon ever. “The cheapest right now is India’s Moon mission ­Chandrayaan 1 which cost €80 ­million (RM370.85 million).”

Speaking to TOI on Friday , Isro chairman A S Kiran Kumar said that India's first private lunar mission by Team Indus will be launched by Isro's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). “The launch will be from Sriharikota,“ he said.

Asked if Isro and Team Indus have firmed up the agreement related to the launch he replied “yes.“

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Current plans envisage the Team Indus mission being provisionally launched on September 21, 2017, and reaching the moon about a fortnight later

"The team planned to deploy two or three different small rovers from one lander, one to perform the basic requirements of the GLXP and another to try for other prizes including long range driving and night survival. The lander, named HHK1 (Hum Honge Kamyaab, ‘We Shall Overcome’), would serve as a communication relay for the GLXP rover or rovers. The lander would carry an ultraviolet telescope to a proposed landing site in Mare Imbrium near Sinus Iridum at 38.336° N, 26.006° W (Safonova et al., 2014). Another site mentioned on the team’s website was in Sinus Medii at 0.50 N, 1.50 W."

The startup has developed a Lunar rover named Indie, which is set to take flight on an unmanned spacecraft, also in the prototyping stage at Team Indus’ facility in Bengaluru. “She (Indie) is going to be heading to the moon in 2017. Team Indus is close to 85 engineers and over two dozen retired ISRO scientists. The engineering team is actually very young, we’ve got an average age of around 25 years and having the scientists from ISRO, these guys have built India’s mission, so it makes a lot of sense with them guiding us towards our ultimate goal,” says an enthusiastic Justin Alva, a member of Team Indus’ outreach team.

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The rover Indie is a four-wheel drive which can be controlled remotely from Earth. Each wheel is designed in aluminium to sustain the unpredictable and rough terrain on the surface of the Moon. Alva tells us, “each wheel is independently driven, and she’s got these amazing cameras that help her plan routes. The lunar surface is dusty and it's really abrasive, that’s why we have aluminium wheels that will ensure that navigation is not a problem. She can take on craters, she can take on rocks.”

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At 10Kgs Indie will be capable of transmitting high definition images from the Moon, back to Earth. It will take approximately 4 seconds for Indie to execute a command given from Earth. Once the unmanned spacecraft lands on the Moon, Indie will use Team Indus’ proprietary pan tilt mechanism to connect back to Earth and beam back high definition lunar images.

It would be very, very remarkable if this private effort manages to get to the lunar surface before Chandrayaan-2, and a bit of an awkward moment for ISRO if that happens.

Best of luck to Indie and Team Indus !

It wouldn't matter as the purpose of both the projects are different.The former's objective is simply to land and run a rover upto 500 meters,the later's is not just to land but to carry out various scientific studies.

It wouldn't matter as the purpose of both the projects are different.The former's objective is simply to land and run a rover upto 500 meters,the later's is not just to land but to carry out various scientific studies.

The goals might be different, but main engineering challenges are somewhat similar. Most of the observers would definitely appreciate just the engineering achievement of getting there.However, the immediate challenge for Indus here is getting a launch contract verified by GLXP in time. They seem to accept any kind of vague paper though on rockets that dont even exist, so that shouldnt be so hard.

"We have signed a launch services agreement with Team Indus which essentially provides a PSLV launch for launching a lunar orbiter and lander sometime in the fourth quarter of 2017," Rakesh Sasibhushan, Chairman and Managing Director of Antrix Corporation - the commercial arm of ISRO, Bengaluru - told NDTV.

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will build an extended version of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to carry the lunar rover and lander to the moon. Antrix Corp, the commercial arm of Isro signed the deal with Team Indus, an Antrix official confirmed the development. Team Indus declined comment.

TeamIndus has signed a contract with ISRO to launch its rover to Moon by the end of December, 2017.

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Bengaluru: To win the international Google Lunar XPrize, a private team must build a rover, launch it to the moon, ensure it travels for at least 500 metres on the lunar surface and sends back hi-def images and videos all by December 2017. And the only team from India and still in the race is cutting it real close. TeamIndus, based out of Bengaluru, India, hopes to make it in the last week of the last month of the contest onboard a PSLV rocket. The detail was finalised earlier this month, historic because it is ISRO’s first sale of its launch vehicle to a private entity.

As per the agreement with ISRO, India’s premier space agency will carry the TeamIndus Spacecraft in a launch window that begins on December 28, 2017. ISRO’s PSLV will inject the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit of 880 km x 70,000 km around the earth, before the spacecraft undertakes a 21-day journey to soft-land in Mare Imbrium, a region in the north-western hemisphere of the moon. After landing in Mare Imbrium, the spacecraft will deploy all its payload including the TeamIndus Rover that will traverse 500 metres on the moon’s surface to accomplish its Google Lunar XPRIZE objectives.

Right - in fact as described it will only launch before the end of the year. The landing will be in the middle of January. The X Prize Foundation will have to be a bit flexible on that point. If nobody else has succeeded, they may well allow it. Still, I hope to see other attempts in the months leading up to the deadline.

I would imagine it was Team Indus that asked for a date as late as possible, to give them time to have the spacecraft ready.

This way, they risk1. being beaten in the race by the other teams, who may be able to launch earlier.2. not able to accomplish the mission before the last date, due to any last minute launcher and/or s/c issues that may crop up.I would think that Team Indus would/should prefer to have at least a few weeks margin.

The XPRIZE verification of Team Hakuto’s launch agreement with India’s Team Indus boosts the number of approved competitors to five. That includes Team Indus as well as Moon Express, Synergy Moon and SpaceIL.

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The team’s arrangement calls for sharing a ride to the moon with Team Indus, a competitor, on a PSLV launch vehicle to be sent up from Satish Dhawan Space Center in India around Dec. 28, 2017. That’s just a few days before the deadline for winning a share of the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE purse.

I still wonder what it would mean for ISRO *if* TeamIndus were to perform the first Indian moon landing beating CY-2. I mean, we know CY-2 and TeamIndus spacecraft are attempts on vastly different scales, but the general public may not notice the difference.

It's all in how you play it. Indus could create excitement that Chandrayaan could build on, or it could deflate public interest in the second mission. It depends how ISRO promote their mission in social and mainstream media, and it could go either way. But my impression is that ISRO is not strong on public engagement and will probably not do as well as they could.

Chandrayaan 1 is a good example. The Moon Impact Probe took images down to the point of impact, but only a few frames were released and the potential for a dramatic animation was never realized. The mission team said the frames would not animate well because of the rapid rotation of the probe, but they didn't bother to consult outreach experts who could have pointed out other ways to do it (e.g. placing frames one at a time onto a map, following the ground track down to the point of impact). Similarly the main camera on the orbiter released a handful of press release images at the time, most of which are no longer available. No 'picture of the day' with meaningful outreach efforts.

So let's hope they can learn something from the previous case. In this respect Team Indus may be a great stimulus, if they offer really good public engagement a year before Chandrayaan 2. I hope so.

According to the latest reports, researchers in Kolkata have developed a payload that will share the ride with TeamIndus’s lunar rover and will land on the moon before the Republic Day of India.

“The four-kg payload would be installed atop a lunar lander that a Bengaluru-based private company Team Indus is planning to send to the moon in December 2017. We have signed a deal with Team Indus. The country’s trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) engineered by India’s space agency ISRO would be carrying the lander and at least two rovers to the moon,” said Sandip Kumar Chakrabarti, Head of thade Indian Center for Space Physics in Kolkata.

The instrument will study outer space environment of the lunar surface. The spacecraft has sophisticated X-ray sensors and small but powerful computer to analyse the data.

As TeamIndus races to design an all-terrain rover by end-2017 for this lunar mission, the French Space Agency will provide it with cameras, the release said.

In the presence of the Minister, Narayan and Le Gall signed an agreement for equipping Axiom Research Lab’s lunar rover with two latest-generation CASPEX micro-cameras, developed by CNES in partnership with French firm 3DPlus.In joining forces with Team Indus on this first private mission to land a rover on the moon, CNES is sending French technology for the first time on lunar terrain, the release said.

As TeamIndus races to design an all-terrain rover by end-2017 for this lunar mission

If they're still designing their rover, that doesn't leave much time to build and test it before launch.

Of all the competitors, Team Indus will launch the Lunar Satellite and land on the moon as the last entry. Because their launch date is amongst the last one and do not forget that after launching the Team Indus Lunar Probe into earth orbit, PSLV has to raise the orbit of the lunar satellite after a series of engine burns to get into the Lunar orbit, just the way it launched Chandrayaan 1 to Lunar Orbit. So, if Team Indus wants to win the prize, they have to launch as early as the beginning of December, 2017.

Perhaps their priority is less about winning the prize, and more about catching the attention of the country and its govt. An Indian 'private' effort at moon landing?? Did I miss something?

As it became clear Rutan was likely to win the original X Prize, some of the other competitors said similar things -- winning the prize wasn't the most important thing, and they were more focused on commercial success or some other goal, whether they won the prize or not. And then none of them ever flew anything.

Perhaps their priority is less about winning the prize, and more about catching the attention of the country and its govt. An Indian 'private' effort at moon landing?? Did I miss something?

As it became clear Rutan was likely to win the original X Prize, some of the other competitors said similar things -- winning the prize wasn't the most important thing, and they were more focused on commercial success or some other goal, whether they won the prize or not. And then none of them ever flew anything.

Live by the prize, die by the prize.

In an Indian context it might be slightly different though. The country doesn't have much of what can be considered a private space ecosystem as it exists in the West, whether they be satellite manufacturing or launch vehicles. TeamIndus may have plans to become one of the first private space enterprises in India, especially as ISRO is hunting around for partners to take some of rhe load off its back. And this mission, even if a bit late or ultimately unsuccessful, might just help them with it. Its just my guess though. Take it with a liberal pinch of salt.

A Bengaluru start-up says donors to its moon lander project will be immortalised.

Indians are being offered the opportunity to leave their name on the moon, for a price. Space start-up TeamIndus will get the names of public ‘donors’ micro-engraved on a small-sized aluminium object, which will be placed on the lunar surface when its lander descends on the moon. The bill: ₹500 per name.

Mohini Parameswaran is perhaps the most popular person working at TeamIndus. She on Spacecraft health monitoring and ground segment software for the Moon Mission. She is also one of the most experienced people in TeamIndus, having worked earlier with the European Space Agency — ESA — for nearly 13 years and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for more than two decades. At ISRO and ESA, she worked on a gamut of prestigious projects. That list starts from the early days of the Rohini series of satellites to IRS 1C for ISRO and from Envisat to the Rosetta Mission for ESA. Here are edited excerpts from a conversation with her.

What made you join TeamIndus?I first heard about TeamIndus through a chance meeting with the Mission Director Mr. N.S. Hegde(Formerly Mission Director of Chandrayaan-1), when I met him at ISAC — ISRO Satellite Centre — in October, 2015. Soon after, in the first week of November, I came across TeamIndus again when I read an article about four start-up companies in the space industry in a newspaper. I felt prompted to call Mr. Hegde and ask him about it again whereupon he informed me that the one without any photos in the newspaper article is TeamIndus.

I was invited to visit the TeamIndus office on the 9th of November, 2015 and was impressed by the presentation on the GLXP mission. Among other things, the members of TeamIndus and I discussed how mission operations are conducted at European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) and about SCOS-2000, ESOC’s Mission Control software, given my experience with these operations and systems. I left the office that day with the healthy feeling that the younger generations in India have excellent opportunities to study and work in their fields of choice and are utilising them well.

Next January, tired of the retired life, I contacted Mr. Hegde to determine if there was any work in TeamIndus that matched my experience. I was invited to sit in on the monthly review held on the last Saturday of every month. Within a short while, I was working twice a week at TeamIndus.

TeamIndus follows the philosophy of mixing extremely young engineers fresh out of college with people like you who have been there and done that. How has the experience been working with young scientists?

I had decided that if I get a chance to work with this young and energetic team, I will be healthy both physically and mentally. So when I got a chance to join, I took the opportunity. It was, and has continued to be, a very refreshing experience to work with a team whose average age is just over half the span of my career! These youngsters are open and have the courage to ask questions that I perhaps may not have thought of. The team liked my approach and what I brought to the project and now, here I am, working everyday with them.

There is a great spirit in this group of people that needs to be sustained in future missions and projects because venturing into something as potentially limitless and advantageous to mankind as the space industry, especially as a private sector company in India, is a pioneering undertaking. It is in some ways equivalent to the pioneers and explorers of old — requiring a high level of commitment, focus, integrity and an enthusiasm for discovery. I am confident that we will complete this and future missions successfully, blaze a trail and set an example for all who wish to achieve exceptionally and be part of something greater than themselves.

What is that one piece of advice you have for the next generation of youngsters thinking of pursuing science?Sustain this spirit through out your career and life. Continue the high level of commitment, focus, integrity and the enthusiasm for discovery. Set an example for all who wish to achieve exceptional goals.

I Think Team Indus Has All Capabilities to win this price.They Have good team, They robot look best and already win $1 Million Price - Google Lunar XPrize Landing Milestone prize.They also secure Launch Contract with ISRO.So best Combination.however competition is tough, also Israel team is also a good competitor.

Team Indus, the private initiative to land a rover on the Moon, received 3,000 entries from 15 countries including the US, the UK, Peru, Italy and India for its Lab2Moon competition, announced in July last year, to select experiments to be carried as payloads on its rover.

From those entries, 15 have been shortlisted, including an inflatable dome that could help humans live on the Moon, an experiment to see how hardy microorganisms adapt to conditions on the Moon, and even a project that seeks to produce oxygen on the Moon. The projects are mostly by youngsters, many of them college students.

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On Wednesday , a jury consisting of former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan, French space agency CNES's former chairman Alain Bensoussan, and professor of astrophysics at Yale University Priyamvada Natarajan will select a maximum of eight winners from the shortlisted 15.

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Bengaluru-based The Lunar Leap is looking to send Tardigrades, micro-animals considered capable of withstanding some of the most severe environmental conditions, to the Moon and study their survival behaviour. "This will help us learn more about their DNA structure, learn what makes them so tough, and even culture those strands in human cells," said Keertivardhan M Joshi, one of the three team members, all employees of the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) but participating in their personal capacities.

"Teams Callisto, Ears and Kalpana from India, Space4Life from Italy, Lunadome from Britain, Killa Lab from Peru and Regolith Revolution from the U.S. have qualified to fly their experiments to the lunar surface in our spacecraft," said a TeamIndus statement.

Inside, across a large hall, a team of over 100 professionals, mostly youngsters in the average age group of 25 years, are buckling down to accomplish what is being touted as a historic project—the world's first privately-funded mission to not only build and 'soft-land' a spacecraft on the moon,

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Although missions to the moon have been conducted by five countries so far—the erstwhile Soviet Union, the US, Japan, China and India—apart from the European Space Agency, only three nations (the US, Russia and China) have successfully accomplished a soft landing on the moon, as against a ‘crash landing'. If Team Indus succeeds in its mission, India will be the fourth country on that list.

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If all goes as per plan, Team Indus will hoist the Tricolour on the moon's surface on January 26—India's Republic Day—next year after undertaking a journey of 21 days in space. It will also be able to fulfill the terms of the Google Lunar XPrize (GLXP), thereby becoming eligible to win a total of $30 million in prize money.

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The start-up has already won a ‘Milestone Prize' of $1 million for its ‘lunar lander' design in 2015. If Team Indus, indeed, becomes the first team to fulfill all the mission requirements, it could win $20 million as the grand prize.

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If it's the runner-up, it would still win $5 million. Only five teams, including Team Indus, remain in the running now. The others are SpaceIL (Israel), Moon Express (the US), Synergy Moon (an international team made up of members from over 15 different nations) and Hakuto (Japan). The deadline for completing the project is December 31 this year.

Over the next few months, members of Team Indus, the Bengaluru-based startup that will send a privately funded spacecraft to the moon this year, will tour the country and visit over 36,000 schools to raise awareness about their mission.

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The ‘Moonshot Wheels’ campaign, will consist of a mobile vehicle that will tour the country to educate children about astronomy and space.

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According to the team, the company has almost finished building its 600-kg-plus moon lander.

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The team also put forward an offer. By paying ₹500, you can have your name micro-engraved on an aluminium plate, which will be placed on the moon.

Team Indus, a Bengaluru start-up aspiring to be the first Indian private space company, signed a contract with ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix Corporation for a launch but is now awaiting clearance for the launch ahead of a December 31 deadline.

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Team Indus and a Japanese team, Hakuto, are contracted to fly on ISRO’s PSLV XL rocket on December 28, 2017, three days before the closure of the deadline for the Google X Prize contest. The two teams will share the nearly $30 million commercial cost for the launch.

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“The necessary approvals for launch of the Team Indus moon mission has not yet concluded. An MoU was signed last year by Antrix Corporation and Team Indus. The launch service has to be authorised by the government and the approval process is going on,” Antrix chairman and managing director Rakesh Sasibhushan said. Sources in ISRO said the MoU is under scrutiny and various questions are being asked about the nature of the launch, the Google Lunar X Prize competition and intellectual property issues involved.

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The mission is expected to cost Team Indus in the range of $ 70 million to build its moon rover and spacecraft from scratch and to launch it to the moon.

Bengaluru: Team Indus, the private initiative to land a rover on the Moon, is looking to raise $40 million through a mix of corporate sponsorship and crowdfunding before its scheduled lunar rover mission launch in December.

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"Our spacecraft structure is ready. The software and the mission command centre is up and running and is undergoing testing. This mission is challenging. ISRO's Chandrayaan 1 was an orbital mission, while our spacecraft has to land on the Moon," said Narayan. He, however, noted that the company could take some liberties because the mission is a short, landing-focussed one. The flight testing of the spacecraft and payloads will happen next month at ISRO's facility.

According to this report, Team Indus moon mission seems to have slipped to the early 2018. ISRO Chairman confirms that Team Indus has signed an agreement with ISRO's commercial arm Antrix to launch its moon missiion.

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will launch its Chandrayaan-2 mission, an advanced version of its previous 2018 mission with the objective of deeper lunar surface probe, and another mission by Team Indus, a group of space enthusiasts who want to unfurl the tricolour on the moon's surface as part of a global lunar competition.

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Team Indus, comprising mostly young engineers and led by IIT-Delhi alumnus Rahul Narayan, is planning the mission as part of a global contest to win $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE, which stipulates the rover of a competing team has to move 500 metre on the moon's surface and should be able to beam back high-definition images back to Earth.

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Confirming the use of PSLV service for the Team Indus project, Isro chairman A S Kiran Kumar told TOI, "Team Indus has signed an agreement with Antrix (Isro's commercial arm) for using the launch service of PSLV."

Explaining the difference between the two missions, the Isro chairman said, "Both the missions are scientifically and technically totally different. Even the instruments used in the two spacecrafts will be different. There is no question of any comparison."

Team Indus is using the service of PSLV to take its 600-kg baby spacecraft to the lunar orbit.

"what are the odds the deadline also gets shifted a few months into 2018?"

While there is still a slim chance that one team might get off the ground in 2017, no change would be likely. But if by about October it is obvious nobody can make it before the end of the year, a change would become more feasible. From a PR point of view, cancelling the contest a month before launch would look worse than a small extension. From a competition management point of view it might be the other way round, but the lesson should probably be applied to future competitions rather than forced onto this one.

The missions are very different, so apart from landing first, I don't think any upstaging is likely. It might be the other way round - Indus 'warms up the crowd' as a prelude to the ISRO mission. Of course, if the first mission succeeds and the second crashes things will not look so good. It's particularly interesting that the two launches look like being fairly close together, just a few months apart, possibly. So chances to work together on outreach would be there if anyone wanted to take advantage of them. Somehow I suspect that might be difficult, which would be a shame.

New Delhi (Sputnik) — India's first privately funded lunar mission TeamIndus has got an extension of deadline for launching its moon rover for the $30 million Google Lunar Xprize (GLXP).

TeamIndus and its global rivals now have to complete their missions by March 31, 2018 irrespective of the launch date. Earlier, GLXP organizers had fixed the launch date as December 31, 2017.

"The launch date is not a factor anymore. The teams will have to complete their missions by March 31, 2018," read a GLXP statement.

TeamIndus' will launch the rover with the help of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)'s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The mission was set to begin on 28 December 2017, but the latest extension gives it more time to run tests.

Last month, the judges returned to check the preparedness six months ahead of launch. "We got the thumbs up to start building the final spacecraft and in six months' time we will be launching and landing on the moon.

The primary engine on the spacecraft is a liquid rocket engine with a thrust capability of 440 N for major maneuvers. It is accompanied by sixteen small 22 N thrusters for finer orbital maneuvers and directional control.

I believe the engines are from ISRO. The 440 N engine should be the LAM (Liquid Apogee Motor) and the 22 N altitude control engines should also be the ones that ISRO uses on most of its satellites needing self propulsion (GSAT, Mangalyaan to name a few).

It is would be a sensible approach especially considering the lack of expertise & resources in Team Indus for propulsion development and long development times for such hardware.

I believe the engines are from ISRO. The 440 N engine should be the LAM (Liquid Apogee Motor) and the 22 N altitude control engines should also be the ones that ISRO uses on most of its satellites needing self propulsion (GSAT, Mangalyaan to name a few).

TeamIndus and Isro have not made it public yet but they have called off the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle launch contract signed for the GLXP mission.

A host of issues led to this decision though primary among them is a payment cycle gone awry. A chartered PSLV flight costs anywhere between $25-30 million.

TeamIndus continues its fund-raising efforts though it’s not clear whether it would go for an independent moon mission in 2018 or later or take a different growth path altogether.

What was supposed to be a banner year for the Bengaluru company, hasn’t begun well but it could still have an expected end

As far as long shots go, this was truly a moonshot—both literally and otherwise. A true leap of faith which rallied nationalistic sentiments and tens of millions of dollars in angel funds. But in the end, this moonshot seems to have fizzled out. The launch contract that TeamIndus signed with Antrix Corporation—the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)—in December 2016, in pursuit of its $30-million Google Lunar XPRIZE goal, has been cancelled. Multiple sources within Isro confirmed the news.

Also, on Thursday at the Lunar lander workshop at NASA Ames, a Team Indus representative was discussing a (probably) non-X Prize flight later in the year when they do get the money they need, and looking ahead to a couple of future missions.

Received below email from them. They're offering refund for any donations that were made

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2017 was a defining year for TeamIndus and as we move into the New Year, we want to thank you for walking hand in hand with us. Ours is a long journey, both in form and spirit. It comes with a unique set of challenges and obstacles but we are determined to stay on the path and remain focused on the goal.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been given to understand that launching from India is unviable. Our recent interactions with Antrix has indicated that they are not going forward with us for the launch. While that means we will not meet the current GLXP timeline of Mar 31, 2018, we intend to continue our endeavor to land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon. We have made initial contact with launch providers overseas and will have a clearer picture of the alternatives by the end of this month.

We believe our new challenge has a silver lining – it untethers us, enabling us to push forward with renewed vigor and increased flexibility. It also strengthens our aspiration to continue going moonwards.

While we never publicly launched our engagement campaign, we are delighted to have had over 9000 people contributing Rs.500 to be a part of our journey and send their names to the Moon. We thank you for being one of them. As our launch will be delayed, we would like to offer you the opportunity to get a refund for the money we received from you.

Do confirm whether your payment card/bank account you made the payment from, continues to be your active one and if you would like the refund transferred to your account. We look forward to hearing from you within 3 days of the receipt of this mail if there is any change in the account/card number, after which we will be refunding the money to that account.

We would love to engage with you again for the next stage of our journey and will continue to be in touch with you. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions or thoughts you may have.

The Google Lunar X Prize competition, which has spent the past decade dangling a $20 million prize for the first privately financed venture to make it to the moon, came to a quiet end on Tuesday. Not with the ka-boom of a rocket launch or a winner beaming photos back from the lunar surface, but with a tweet and a statement.

The organizers at the X Prize Foundation conceded that none of the five remaining entrants have a chance of getting off the ground by the deadline at the end of March.

I'm at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference - LPSC - in (or rather, near) Houston. Team Indus are here and they are still trying to make their mission work. Being free of the calendar shackles of GLXP they can plan to fly when they have the funds, and that is still their intention. In fact they are touting two additional missions after the first. The second lander would attempt to survive the lunar night, the third might attempt a sample return from a point very close to the south pole.

LEAG meets tomorrow. I will look for any news of commercial lunar mission opportunities.

More on Team Indus. Their first mission, if it can find the funding, will include the Hakuto rover as well as their own - as previously planned for the GLXP. But a new thing - it will add the Synergy Moon rover. Looks like they finally got tired of waiting for Interorbital.